G.I. Joe: 25th Anniversary Destro: Iron Grenadier Commander

I've said it a couple of times throughout my reviews of 2008 Wave 1 (no this is NOT Wave 5!! :P )...it almost seems as if someone at Hasbro was reading my mind when this wave was conceived and produced. While I wouldn't have had yet another Snake Eyes on my brain, all of the rest of these figures have certain meaning and significance to me in my Joe collecting history. The Crimson Guard has long been my single most favorite COBRA Trooper designation and COBRA Army Builder figure. Flash has the distinction of being the first Joe figure I ever purchased. Snow Job was born in my home state and while I've never been a huge fan of the figure, as a kid, he got LOTS of play use, mostly because of the climate of where I lived and because of his link to the New England area. And then we have this figure...the Iron Grenadier version of Destro. I've made no secret of the fact that the Iron Grenadiers are far and away my favorite subteam, and throughout the history of the vintage line, the '88 version of Destro was my favorite. In fact I strongly believe the design aesthetic of that figure still carries through today...that can easily be seen just by taking a look at the updated Anniversary version which takes everything great about the vintage version and turns it up to "11".

Seeing this figure initially left me a bit mixed. He looked pretty severely mal-proportioned, and without his cape, it was tough to get a grasp on how he really looked. I am thrilled to say that once I got the figure in hand, my opinion has improved dramatically. The figure is tall...very tall, which is fitting for this particular character. Regardless of his height, from head to toe this figure is absolutely amazing from a design perspective.

His head sculpt appears to be the same as the previous versions of Destro (so watch out for those loose "Gold-head Leopard Print Destro" figures on eBay...), but the rest of the figure is all new and all great. He's got broad shoulders with some solid sculpting in the torso, and the chest decorations are sculpted on top over it as we've come to expect. The medals on the left side of his chest look great, as do those trademark shoulder spikes. On the right hand side of his chest, the sculpted on detail keeps his red cloak attached to the figure and it looks fantastic doing it. I am extremely pleased with how well the red cape works, it's a nice thick cloth material that won't rip easily (like Serpentor used to do back in the day) and drapes remarkably well over the figure's shoulder. If there are any downsides to the cloth, it's that it's a little too thick to drape effectively over his back. It has a tendancy to kind of skew out the back, or cover his arm in funky ways, but that is such a minor complaint it's hardly worth mentioning. I'll trade off the cape's durability any day of the week.

His legs are sculpted meticulously well, 100% accurate to the legs on the vintage version, and it ends up working amazingly well, and I really love the way they've designed the sword sheath to hang from his belt the way it does.

His gold belt looks as if it could be removable if it weren't glued into the groove on his waist, which adds some nice design element, and the holster on his left leg is terrific. Hasbro has made such strides in the design of their holsters and sheaths over the past few years, it's just amazing. Looking at those bulky, combersome slots that used to come on the new sculpt figures back in the day, but now we've got working holster flaps, streamlined pouch...it looks incredible.

All in all, Hasbro did an impeccable job translating the old school '88 Destro into Anniversary form. It's really an amazing looking figure. I do find myself growing a bit tired of the dramatic trigger-finger sculpting on the hands, though. Both of Destro's hands are sculpted that way, which can somewhat limit the stuff you can do with him and the ways you can pose him.

If there was one thing that Hasbro really needed to work on, it was the functional articulation of the original release Anniversary figures, and they've been making leaps and bounds since the first releases in 2007. We still struggle somewhat with some stiff joints, but for the most part range of motion has been dramatically improved and the torso joints even seem to be getting better designed.

An interesting thing about Destro, though, is his lack of double-joint knees. I'm not sure if there was an aesthetic or functional reason for it, and I suppose in the end he doesn't really need them that badly, but the more I see double knees the more I like them. This version of Destro just seems to be missing them a bit, even though I can't imagine him crouching too much in his ceremonial gear.

Besides that, he's got the same ball-joint shoulders, swivel arm/elbows and swivel wrists. His hips move pretty freely, and he can sit down unlike many of the recent figures. Ultimately the articulation looks good and works quite well.

Destro isn't loaded with gear, but the stuff he comes with makes sense. He basically comes with a gold pistol that fits into his holster, and a ceremonial sword that fits easily into the sheath on his hip and works very, very well. It's not a bunch of gear, but it accents the figure well and suits the ceremonial garb as it should.

A great version of Destro redesigned from one of the best vintage figures in the line. The updated look to this ceremonial uniform looks terrific and the articulation is great as well. From head to toe, cape, sheath, pistol...all of it works amazingly well and gives us a great update to the Scottish Arms Dealer we all know and love. Great introductory wave to start of 2008 with and things are rolling along very nicely from here!